gridman
Supporting Member
Hi everyone. Meet Mrs. Clownfish. (I know. Not very original.) I acquired her in 2005 from an LFS in Santa Rosa. She has been with us ever since. In fact, I have had a longer relationship with her than I have with my wife. 
She survived 6 tank builds including 3 long distance moves. In fact she is in Utah right now with my wife where we spent the pandemic. Basically, the new Waterbox build we embarked upon last winter is for her.
I started the hobby in 2005 by repurposing a formally fresh water 55 gal glass tank. We have been going bigger ever since. Our last "permanent" setup was a 180 gal acrylic that ran since the end of 2012 until now. The pandemic and the ensuing work-from-home gave us an opportunity to spend some time in Utah so we decided to move the tank. My wife acquired a 100 gal used glass tank there and we split the livestock 30/70 between California and Utah partly because 100 gal was too small to accommodate all the live stock and partly to mitigate the risk of a catastrophic tank failure. It's a 12 hour drive not counting packing/unpacking. I had a ton of fun doing a new build in Utah. The picture below is from that tank about a year ago. The tank in California was left running unattended with full automation and remote monitoring. We had a very close call within the first month of leaving it unattended when our entire town was evacuated due to a wildfire. We had multiple power failures and the GFCI outlet the tank was plugged in failed despite the full house power backup. Oh the irony watching a dark tank on live security cameras. Since the town was evacuated we couldn't find anyone to come by to switch everything to a different outlet. The tank was without life support for almost 36 hours before my neighbor managed to break through the road blocks and come by the house. Miraculously, we did not lose any livestock. Mrs. Clownfish was in California at the time. What likely saved the day was August's weather -- it remained relatively warm. The large tank size also helped. My wife dispatched me to California to fetch the the fish as soon as the evacuation orders were lifted.
When the work-from-home ended, my wife remained in Utah to care for the tank while I came back to California to take down the old 180 gal acrylic that has gotten so old you could barely see through the haze and micro cracks. That was back in November. The new Waterbox was delivered to my garage a couple of weeks later where it's been sitting ever since. I finally took down the old 180 gal two weeks ago and am getting ready to put the new 600 lbs glass beast into its permanent location hopefully this weekend if I managed to get enough people to move it. I will update this thread with everything that has been done so far along with what we plan for the future.
More to come...
She survived 6 tank builds including 3 long distance moves. In fact she is in Utah right now with my wife where we spent the pandemic. Basically, the new Waterbox build we embarked upon last winter is for her.I started the hobby in 2005 by repurposing a formally fresh water 55 gal glass tank. We have been going bigger ever since. Our last "permanent" setup was a 180 gal acrylic that ran since the end of 2012 until now. The pandemic and the ensuing work-from-home gave us an opportunity to spend some time in Utah so we decided to move the tank. My wife acquired a 100 gal used glass tank there and we split the livestock 30/70 between California and Utah partly because 100 gal was too small to accommodate all the live stock and partly to mitigate the risk of a catastrophic tank failure. It's a 12 hour drive not counting packing/unpacking. I had a ton of fun doing a new build in Utah. The picture below is from that tank about a year ago. The tank in California was left running unattended with full automation and remote monitoring. We had a very close call within the first month of leaving it unattended when our entire town was evacuated due to a wildfire. We had multiple power failures and the GFCI outlet the tank was plugged in failed despite the full house power backup. Oh the irony watching a dark tank on live security cameras. Since the town was evacuated we couldn't find anyone to come by to switch everything to a different outlet. The tank was without life support for almost 36 hours before my neighbor managed to break through the road blocks and come by the house. Miraculously, we did not lose any livestock. Mrs. Clownfish was in California at the time. What likely saved the day was August's weather -- it remained relatively warm. The large tank size also helped. My wife dispatched me to California to fetch the the fish as soon as the evacuation orders were lifted.
When the work-from-home ended, my wife remained in Utah to care for the tank while I came back to California to take down the old 180 gal acrylic that has gotten so old you could barely see through the haze and micro cracks. That was back in November. The new Waterbox was delivered to my garage a couple of weeks later where it's been sitting ever since. I finally took down the old 180 gal two weeks ago and am getting ready to put the new 600 lbs glass beast into its permanent location hopefully this weekend if I managed to get enough people to move it. I will update this thread with everything that has been done so far along with what we plan for the future.
More to come...
